the right to bear arms

PANAMA EXPLAINS THE SECOND AMENDMENT

A long, long time ago in a place called Europe, there were basically two classes of people: Nobles and Peasants. The Nobles owned the land, which had been given to them by the King, who'd had it given to him by God. The Peasants worked the land and made it produce by the strength of their backs and the sweat of their brows. Then the Nobles gave some of the produce to the King, and as a reward to the Peasants, would sometimes let the Peasants come into the Castle and watch them eat.

You can see right away that every once in a while an especially bright Peasant would realize that the Peasants were getting the shaft, and perhaps foment a revolt.

The Nobles, no dummies they, either, could see this, too. So they figured out a way to keep the Peasants down. And here's how they did it: they decreed that no Peasant could own or even learn to ride a horse, and Peasants were not allowed to have weapons, such as swords, in their possession. So whenever the Peasants rose up, the Nobles would just ride them down with their horses and skewer them with their swords.

You still with me, NRA? Because here's where it gets interesting. Allowing Nobles to have swords and not allowing Peasants to have swords became known as “The right to bear arms”.

Nobles had the “right to bear arms” and Peasants did not have “the right to bear arms”. Because if they did have that right, there was a very strong possibility that the Nobles would get their asses handed to them on a platter, the Peasants would no longer work for them and the King would be very angry.

This situation persisted in this place called Europe for a very long time, several hundred years in fact, until some of the Peasants (and Nobles) came to the hallowed shores of America. They had a war...we call it the Revolution, but it was really a rebellion...no matter.

After the colonists had won their war and had their own country for a while, it became necessary to have a Constitution. That's the one that begins “We the People...”

Included in that Constitution was a section now known as The Second Amendment. And what it said, and still does, is that everybody had “the right to bear arms”. Simple as that. But what it meant is no Nobles, and no Peasants. Still does. It didn't mean, nor does it now mean, that everybody should run out and buy an assault rifle.

PANAMA RECOUNTS HIS DAYS IN THE PORNO INDUSTRY

PANAMA RECOUNTS HIS DAYS IN THE PORNO INDUSTRY

There was a time when I found myself in desperate need of actual work…actually there have been somewhat more than several of those times, but I’m only going to discuss one of them today. 
Anyway, I had a friend of sorts, a prince of a fellow, actually,  who owned a string of theatres which showed what were called “dirty movies” back then, and he offered me a job as a projectionist at one of his places.  I jumped at the chance, frankly, because in addition to earning some money I actually would learn a new skill to add to my set:  operating a Hortzon 35-mm projector.
It was a complicated machine.
My first day on the job I spent under the tutelage of a projectionist at a theater other than the one I was hired for, in order to learn the duties of my job. My tutor was an actual bonafide member of IATSE.   My job was basically to keep something on the screen at all times. Which required two projectors, so while Reel #1 was unwinding off Projector #1, I would be loading up Reel#2 onto Projector #2, and when I saw that little square in the corner of the screen, it would signal that it was time to unleash Projector #2 onto the fevered viewers in the darkness below.
The movies then were not much different than those of today(I know because I accidentally stumbled across some internet pornography when I mistakenly typed “video porn” into the Google search box), though there’s a lot more anal fascination currently.  It’s a cultural thing, I suppose.  But basically they were of the same format:  a lame (and always blessedly short) plot line leading to displays of sexual activity….the French maid, the lady cop, the neglected housewife and the pool guy, the teacher who keeps a student after class, your basic juvenile fantasies enacted on the silver screen.  There were also “hippies” in some of the flicks, as the world at large was pretty sure that “hippies” had great sex.  Those “hippies” are respectable property-owning, tax-paying  AARP members now, so we’ll leave them alone, shall we?  
One thing about pornography that I discovered back then is that, after a few times of seeing the same movies while waiting for that little square to appear in the corner, well, it gets to be at first boring, and then tedious, and then downright aggravating. The same camera angles recording the same coital positions, the same “ummms” and “ahhhs” and “ohhhhs” on the sound track. Over and over and over and over and over.  I mean there’s only so many ways….even when new movies arrived each week, they turned out to be just as dull as those the week before.
Another of my duties was that, if a film should break, I had to throw the other projector into action and take the broken film off its Hortzon and into a little room off the projection booth, where I would splice it back together. I learned to splice a film really really well.  The usual reel was about 12 inches in diameter.  One day while I was back there splicing a broken film, I happened to look under the splicing table and saw that there were two empty 18-inch reels.  Think about this:  if a twelve inch reel holds, say, 40 minutes of film, then an 18-inch reel, using that math stuff, will hold a lot more, because of the ever-increasing length of film with each turn of the reel..
I had an idea.
While showing the first movie for the day, I would splice all the other movies for that day onto one 18-inch reel, set it up on the other Hortzon and when the first movie ended, let it rip.  When it had finally unwound, I’d turn on the other projector while I respooled the 18-incher.  Once I got rolling, I was actually working about 2 hours out of every eight.
Nobody ever noticed that most of the movies seemed to be coming from the same projection window.  I turned the sound in the projection booth down  as well, and at last had a complete perfect job: one where I had to do almost nothing.  I could read the New York Times, for instance, even do the crossword puzzle if it was before Friday and therefore easy enough to do in the two and a half hours the 18-inchers were unspooling.  I kept a film on the other Hortzon just in case one of my splices broke and I had to turn it on, and to run while I rewound the 18-incher.  At the end of my shift, I took the splices back apart and restored them to their 12-inchers.  Nobody caught wise. 
All went along just fine, the films never broke, the place never caught fire, nothing happened.  I admit that I got a little laissez-faire.  I started cranking up the 18-inch and lying down to rest my eyes a little from all that splicing. 
My last day in the pornography industry happened like this:  I was lying on the floor resting my eyes, when I gradually became aware of the "thlip thlip thlip” sound of a broken film slapping the projector.  One of my impeccable splices had given way.  I opened my eyes and the first thing they saw was a pair of elegant millionaire Miami Beach pale green alligator shoes, which I immediately recognized as belonging to my boss and benefactor.   “Panama, believe me, I know this stuff is boring, but you cannot go to SLEEP, so I gotta fire you.  As soon as you finish today, you’re finished, okay?”
And so I undid my 18-inch reel for the last time, put the movies back on their proper 12-inchers, collected my pay (there was even a little bonus – I told you the guy was a prince), and walked out into the wonderful, sultry Old Miami Beach afternoon, cleansed by the sun.
                                                    -30-

Item number: 360514977457

I've been looking at this Abacus box for must be ten years.  
I got kinda interested in it a few years back and looked it up.  I got all excited because, though I could find the accompanying book by the hundreds on Amazon, I could not find one single other actual, genuine, No 748 Abacus, like the one pictured here.  It's the "toy" Ideal made to go with the Abacus book.  It's all pre-post-modern.  It wasn't the digital age yet, is what I'm really saying.

So I put it up on ebay, expecting that the huge community of nerds out there on the net would take notice of it, maybe think of it as a cool present for their boss, bless their hearts, and snap it right up.  Did the Millenials take the bait?  Oh, I guess a couple of non-scientists came across it, but nobody scientificalistical seemed to give a big RA.  Maybe they were on Facebook being somebody.    No offense intended.

So I didn't sell it.  And,. like I say, I've been looking at it for the past ten or so years.  And time is waning.  Do I want to continue to be the caretaker of this valuable icon from the glory days of yesteryear?  Because I'll tell you, if I die and this box is left on it's own, it's gonna go right into the landfill, lost forever in the detritus of humanity. 

So I've decided to put it back up on ebay, for absolutely totally almost nothing.  Maybe somebody smart will see it this time.  Maybe they'll buy it.   It weighs three pounds, and I'll ship it cheap as I can.  Then you can look at it.  And marvel.

14x(10.5)x4".
 

AMERICAN TOURISM

AMERICAN TOURISM

Here's the problem: America is just so damn big that Americans never actually go anywhere else in the world except in uniform. I'm talking about Europe, boys and girls, not Iraq and Afghanistan, where, let's face it, nobody wants to go anyway.  And when we get there in our uniforms, we tend to spend most of our time on base, because on base we feel almost at home. We never have to step out of our comfort zone, never have to deal directly with the indigenous populations. The PX is like Wal*Mart., the base movie houses play American movies...all is set to live a sequestered life while we wait for the Russians or North Koreans to come over the line. Then when our tours of duty are over we come home unchanged and unaffected by where we've been.  Your average American tourist is just a big ole provincial asshole who goes to Cancun and thinks he's seen Mexico.

A LETTER (apparently from Australia)

A LETTER (apparently from Australia) SOLICITING A KNEE-JERK RESPONSE 

Dear Danny

The wind industry employs 75,000 Americans. And right now, a bill to protect those jobs isn't going anywhere, because Speaker of the House John Boehner -- who sets the calendar for the House of Representatives -- doesn't want to schedule it for an up-or-down vote.

Hey Boehner -- what are you waiting for?

These good-paying jobs for skilled workers in manufacturing, installation, and maintenance

are critical for helping our country move out of the outdated energy economy of previous decades. If anything, we should be adding jobs in this and other renewable energy industries. But instead, we're letting these jobs be lost.

Tea party pressure is causing John Boehner and other House members to let the wind industry die. But what does that mean for the future of this country? We must prevent the House from playing a game of chicken with our economy and our future. It's time we put as much pressure on Boehner as the tea party has! Please sign the petition now.

Thank you for taking action,

Emily L.
Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team

Dear Emily
I'd be the last guy to support John Boehner. But I don't think the wind energy proponents have researched the downside of windmills. 400 feet tall (think forty-storey building), blades more than a hundred feet long, the ends of which are moving at well over 100 mph. Constant whoompf-whoompf of noise 24/7, harmful to the physical and psychological health of those living near them. Tons and tons of concrete poured to make the pads on which they are anchored. You seem to be writing from Australia, which has a lot more unused and unusable space than America.
I have only one horse in this race... the health and well-being of not 75,000 workers, but 350 million (and counting) Americans. Let's put 75,000 people to work on Solar.
panama red

47%

or if I'm so smart why ain't I rich?

Finance, especially of the high kind, has always been a mystery to me. I blamed my lack of a Harvard MBA, or something, anyway, for my lack of understanding.

But over the last few months I have come to understand how Bain Capital worked under Mitt Romney. And now I know why I ain't rich. And probably why you ain't, either.

Wanna get rich? Here's how to do it:

Put together from a bunch of investors a couple of million bucks. You can do this, when you have the confidence to know that it's gonna work. So, then you take that couple of million bucks and you go see a bank, and based on having a couple of million bucks and a four thousand dollar suit, you borrow, say, a hundred million bucks. The bank will lend you this because you let them in on what you're gonna do.

You have found a company that is in trouble financially. Taking that hundred million bucks, you buy a controlling interest in the company. Now the company owes YOU a hundred million bucks, because it's a debt of the company now. So now the company has to pay you (and the bank) back. Sometimes the profit/loss ratio of the company is such that the only way the company can make the payments on the debt is to begin to sell off its assets. Or to raid the retirement accounts of its employees. Or a combination of both.

So as the assets are sold off and the funds raided, the company and the people who depend on employment there now have squat.

Do you care? Not on your life. Because your goal is to make money, not continue to pay a labor force to produce goods on machines you have already sold off. So the company tanks, but only after you have your hundred (and two) million bucks back, plus whatever you've paid yourself for managing the company into the ground.

The original investors profit from letting their money “work” for them, and the bank gets its principal+interest. Some guy in China gets equipment to continue to manufacture whatever. Everybody's happy. Except the people who used to have jobs at the company.

Now, assuming that you really could put together the original couple of million and then the hundred million, would you do it?

Me, neither.

So where we fall down in this scheme is the part about putting people in a failing company out of work. Why? Because it may be slick money management and it may turn a profit, but at heart it's immoral.

And that's why you and I may be smart but we ain't rich.

SEPTEMBER 11

SEPTEMBER 11

JFK's death and the World Trade Center.

I was in a bar in Amsterdam when the first plane smashed into the World Trade Center. And I saw the second one crash into what was left ten minutes later in the same bar on television.

Dazed, I went out into the street, where my friend Mohammed pleaded with me not to blame all Muslims for the actions of a few.

As it turns out I only blame 19 Muslims for the World Trade Center. I don't even blame Osama bin Laden, or at least I only hold him as accountable as I do George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld and others, who all at least had foreknowledge that this was going to occur.

I believe the whole thing was rigged. I do.

These guys were spoiling for a fight, and they were gonna have it no matter what.

I'm not going to go through all the reasons yet again for why I believe what I believe. Nobody who reads this is going to care anyway. They haven't yet.

Except that I may get disappeared I don't either.

See ya.